


Glutton For Punishment

by AndreaLyn



Series: Marathon [3]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:06:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what Chase does, House is still going to treat him like crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glutton For Punishment

**Author's Note:**

> _Chase: I also realize that no matter what I do, you’re still going to treat me like crap._

**Day One**

House has noticed a particular change in Chase’s usual opaque exterior. He seems almost determined lately – a man on a mission and this is not God’s mission, unless God intended for Chase to wear those tight jeans and suck lollipops suggestively, but you never know. If anything, House would have assumed that after their proverbial roll in the hay, horizontal tango, taming the beast with two backs (you get the idea), that Chase would have let up; been sated and not have the sex drive of a deprived teenager.

But apparently, the Australian body chemistry is far more needy than House had suspected.

At least, House assumes that’s why Chase is suddenly pulling more hours and getting a little broader – and yet, more accurate – in his diagnoses. It’s why there’s coffee just the way he likes it and new boxes of animal and graham crackers all the time. Plus, those _looks_. House would be damned, but he’s being leered at. Unabashedly. All the time. And Cameron and Wilson can only ever leer so much; Chase has been picking up the slack.

Apparently, even Foreman notices.

“You do know he’s not going to spontaneously combust by you just staring?”

It’s the calculating mischief in Chase’s voice that comes as a surprise to House. “Not just by staring, no.”

He’s definitely up to _something_.

 **Day Two**

Speaking of up…

It’s three in the morning and House is still awake and idly paging through a 689-page text on cardiology and he’s buzzing through about 20mg of Vicodin. Their patient is going to die of a broken heart – okay, technically, the damaged ventricles and aortas aside, it’s broken – but it’s way _cooler_ to think of it the other way.

The phone rings and House screens his calls, so he doesn’t have to madly dash to the receiver like the other 95% of humanity.

 _I’m not here. Leave a message._

“House.” Ah, he does so love a good lilting accent in the morning. “Just woke up from an interesting dream. You were there. Then again, so was Cuddy. Think she was watching.” House shifts slightly at the images. “Or tying me up.” His blood suddenly chooses a new course, heading for the border. “Can’t be sure. Just thought you might have been _curious_.”

House turns his attention back to his book and marvels at the fact that somehow, suddenly, reading about the cut edge of the pericardium is now sexy. He’s really got to try this trick when Cuddy starts droning on about clinic hours.

 **Day Three**

“Hold the elevator!” House shouts as he arrives in the morning – forty minutes late – and hurries towards the crowded elevator as fast as he can. “Cripple coming!” An arm – oh, in some ungodly paisley print orange shirt – reaches out and holds it up, much to the annoyance of all the other passengers. House smirks as he walks inside and finds himself a nice snug spot in the elevator, towering over Chase. Because really, who else wears paisley print _orange_ with a navy blue tie?

Chase shifts, slightly uncomfortable and offers a smile.

“Thanks,” House says simply, and gosh darn it, but it’s a crowded elevator, and House just stumbles a little forward because of some jostling – really, a _lot_ of jostling, promise! – and his hand lands right on Chase’s thigh, where it meets the hip, just this side of his crotch.

Chase’s eyes widen and he clears his throat as though that’ll dissuade House.

House likes it when Chase’s eyes mimic a deer in headlights. Bambi’s got nothing on those blues.

 **Day Four**

Chase holds up a package. “This came for you,” he mumbles, setting it down on the desk and sitting opposite of House, peering curiously. “You order from Amazon?” House’s eyes light up like a child on Christmas as he grabs the package and gives Chase a smirk. “What is it?” Chase is beginning to sound very worried. “Porn?” he dryly retorts.

“Close,” House answers, holding up his item. “Baywatch. Sort of like porn, but it’s the soft-core side.” His face lights up with an impish grin as he tosses the DVD across the desk and into Chase’s lap. “What do you say?” he asked, with a gesture of his chin to the set. “Up for a date? You, me, Carmen Electra’s rack and ass?”

Chase actually looks interested for about a moment before the sentence seems to filter in and he sputters, “Date?”

“Fine. Mutual masturbation to Carmen,” he sighs, ever so put-upon.

Chase just glares at him dubiously. But oh, he had considered it there for a minute.

 **Day Five**

There’s a knock at House’s door and on his doorstep, there’s a Chase on the doormat that says ‘Beware’. Sure, it has a little picture of a dog on it, but it’s pretty apt. House grins a little at the imagery. A doormat on the doormat. “What have you got?” he asks, gesturing to the bags in Chase’s hands.

“Six-pack of Australian beer,” he answers, eyes sparkling with something mischievous. He holds up the other bag. “Chips and dip.” He peers inside House’s place. “And Baywatch, I think you said?”

Oh, of course. Chase just doesn’t like to get him off on weekdays. He has to wait for a Saturday to let loose, like all good Catholic boys.

 **Day Six**

Sunday morning and House wakes up with Chase in his bed still, sunlight spilling over his bare back. Chase is a quiet sleeper and House is loud when he wakes up, so really, there’s no room for letting Chase have a late start. He pokes Chase awake with his cane and indulges in the whiny sound of protest before resting the cane back in the space between his bed and his nighttable.

He grasps for his leg and winces slightly when a sharp pain reminds him of his injury.

“Hey,” Chase’s sleepy voice mumbles. “Too early to get up.”

House grapples to reach for his Vicodin and pops it open, dry-swallowing one pill – after contemplating two in his palm for a moment and hearing Cuddy’s voice ringing in his head, narrating symptoms of a disease he professes to not having. He shifts back into bed and messes up Chase’s hair, just to make him look a little less like some modern Apollo.

Chase opens his eyes and glances up at House, something lurking in his eyes that might or might not be concern. “Need me to take the edge off…” he trails off, gesturing lower.

The pain or the barely-there erection, he doesn’t say.

“Yeah, why not,” House agrees.

 **Day Seven**

Chase has moved on from pencils to pens in his daily routine of ruining something with his mouth. But he’s doing it purposely, he’s got to be. House taps the green marker against the whiteboard and peers at Chase. “I don’t get it,” he finally says. Cameron and Foreman both look up as well, because when House speaks, you listen. Chase barely glances up, seemingly focused on destroying that pen.

“What, the elevated ANA?” Cameron inquires. “Mixed connective tissue disease, we figured it out.”

House just points to Chase with the marker. “No, there has got to be a differential diagnosis for that.”

Foreman snorts, like he has something to say, but he keeps his mouth shut. Cameron just rolls her eyes and House could _swear_ she mutters, ‘boys,’ in frustration. House lights up and leans forward, plucking the pen away and tucking it into the pocket of his jeans as he snaps his fingers, his own personal ‘Eureka!’

“I’ve got it. Mommy didn’t wean you off the thumb-sucking,” House says with a smirk. “According to Freud, what comes next, the phallic stage? Will you get stuck there too because I can get my video camera back from Wilson.”

Chase just glares.

 **Day Eight**

“Julie kicked me out,” Wilson sighs, on House’s doorstep. House is half-dressed – still in his t-shirt and pajama pants. “You got room on your couch for the night? If I go to a hotel, she’ll track my card and accuse me of getting a hooker.”

“And if you stay here, she accuses you of sleeping with me,” House points out.

Wilson just pauses, shaking his head. “Lesser of two evils,” he accepts after a moment of stuttered consideration. “Why, do you have company?” he asks, a playful hint in his voice.

House just gestures towards the bedroom and Wilson’s eyes widen.

“You have a prostitute in there?” Wilson hisses incredulously.

House rolls his eyes. “Oh, it’s nothing that fun. Chase came by to give me the tox-screen results on the latest patient.” That’s in a file in House’s hand, which he raises to show Wilson.

“And he’s still here?” Wilson scoffs.

“Yeah. Hey, Chase!” House shouts out. “Wilson needs a place to crash. Mind having a threesome tonight?”

Chase appears – fully dressed – with a notepad in his hand and pen in his mouth. “He’s making me take notes as he dictates,” Chase says dryly, words directed to Wilson. “If I were a prostitute,” he continues with a smirk, “at least I’d be getting _paid_ for this.”

“You know,” House says thoughtfully, tapping his finger against his chin. “I am paying him, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Wilson agrees easily, always House’s ally.

House just turns. “You’re on my dollar, Bobby. Just as good as any prostitute.”

By that point, Chase is probably wishing for the threesome. As he should. Wilson’s pent-up marriage issues make for a great time in the sack.

 **Day Nine**

“I got this idea from Wilson,” House remarks, fingers gliding over Chase’s tie in his hands. He’s undressed Chase down to his boxers and his button-down shirt in the janitor’s closet with no _promise_ of sex. “He told me his second wife did it to him after he told her that he didn’t want kids.”

Chase is staring at the tie. “House,” he says warily. “What are you about to do?”

“C’mere,” House urges, shifting a little in the constrained space for Chase’s wrists, tying them behind his back with just a little bit of a struggle. Chase looks rather afraid, because it’s not like he trusts House with this. “Now I’m really in control. Still trust me?”

Chase stares into House’s eyes and sighs, long and sufferingly. But he murmurs, “yes,” and House has never believed anything more.

 **Day Ten**

There’s a reason behind House’s inviting Chase into his car for a drive. He wants to get him into that thing with the top down, go a hundred miles an hour and see if he can finally, _finally_ ruin Chase’s hair for more than five seconds. There’s all sorts of crap in the New Jersey air, some of it’s got to be bound to ruin it.

“Come on,” House urges, jingling his keys atop Chase’s head like he’s a baby or a cat or something. “Car ride?”

Chase barely glances up from his book. “Sorry. Busy.”

 **Day Eleven**

Busy?

Chase isn’t _busy_. Chase has no life. Chase should be waiting at House’s beck and call every moment of the day. He should be there when Wilson is groveling back to the current wife or mistress and isn’t available to cater to House’s latest scheme of madness.

But two days in a row now, when House has offered something – tonight, it’s drinks at the bar two blocks from the hospital with all the hot co-eds – Chase has turned him down, citing that he’s _busy_.

This is a puzzle.

 **Day Twelve**

Chase shows up on House’s doorstep.

“What, not too _busy_ to see me?” House says immediately, clearly not very welcoming. He’s blocking the doorway with his body to show Chase that he’s not very welcome there. House is still figuring out the puzzle. No one’s died – Chase doesn’t even have anyone left to die – and it’s not like Chase has a new girlfriend; although, the nurse with the great ass from OB/GYN was flirting with him the other day. They would have had great sex.

Chase doesn’t say a word. Just sets his jaw.

“What, going to mime school now?” House snaps. “Seminary wasn’t quiet enough?”

Chase opens his mouth, like he’s about to protest, but he just turns and walks away.

Okay, now House _really_ has to solve this one.

 **Day Thirteen**

“Did you say anything to Chase?” he asks Wilson as they’re getting coffee in the morning at the local ‘Bucks and House cons Wilson into buying not only him coffee, but the poor suffering woman with the diamond broach – she had red hair, red lipstick, and a wink that would stop a man in his tracks. It hadn’t been hard to con him.

Wilson stirs a single cream into his black coffee. “Beyond, ‘please don’t ever wear that tie in public again?’ No.”

House narrows his eyes in thought. “He’s gotten more private. Walled up, which is impressive for Chase. He already had enough issues to go head to head with the Wailing Wall.”

“I don’t believe it,” Wilson scoffs. “You’re obsessing again!”

“I am not obsessing,” House protests under his breath as they enter the hospital.

“You are! You know, I honestly thought that you sleeping with him would at least get you to move on to obsessing about sex with Cameron,” Wilson whispers under his breath.

House never had been a fan of whispering. “Sex with Cameron?” he says, all too loudly, to the very crowded lobby of clinic patients, relatives of the sick people, and assorted members of the hospital staff. “Dr. Wilson, she’s a co-worker! You shouldn’t have fantasies like that!”

His smile is smug as he walks past a stunned Wilson.

 **Day Fourteen**

House corners Foreman after they diagnose a patient with a severe allergic reaction to the manuscript she works with at her library. Chase and Cameron have already gone off to wish the patient well on her way or whatever it is that they do. “About Chase…”

“No way,” Foreman protests immediately, laughing as he puts on his suit jacket. “Don’t even start.”

“Start what? A pyramid scheme? Because I heard about this great one in Lake Tahoe where they want to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Come on, we can go in halfsies,” House urges. “Don’t start what?”

“You and Chase,” he remarks. “Man’s got more issues than _you_ , which is saying something. Don’t start something.”

House stares at Foreman. “Gee. Thanks,” he says firmly. “I forgot that you were my _ethics_ counselor. You can go home now, incidentally. Don’t steal any shiny cars on the way.”

 **Day Fifteen**

Cameron actually comes to _him_ , first. That totally saves him face by not having to go cantering to her like some sort of desperate puppy looking for a bone. He’s playing Space Invaders and he’s finally on Level 7 when she approaches his desk with widened eyes to rival that same look in the headlights that Chase has got down pat.

“I’m worried,” she says bluntly.

House glances up long enough to see that, thank you. “About the economy? Who wouldn’t be?”

“No,” she contradicts, rolling her eyes and sinking down into a chair. “About Chase. He was going over a patient’s records about two weeks ago and ever since…he’s been…”

Aha, bingo, eureka, the king is dead.

“He’s been what?” House prods.

Cameron just smiles, shaking her head – brown curls going flying as she glances to the computer, as though scoping out just how many e-mails she’ll be replying to later. “I don’t know. Just weird, it’s probably nothing. You’d notice anyway,” she adds wryly.

Yeah, he’s noticed. He just hasn’t solved it.

 **Day Sixteen**

Chase shows up at his doorstep again. “If I said we had to talk, you wouldn’t let me in, right?” he greets House.

“Good evening to you too,” House snorts. “How was your day? Good? Mine sucked. I had this blonde twink on my doorstep demanding a talk like we were in some kind of relationship. Pass the remote.” Chase’s nose wrinkles up like he’s just smelled something bad and he pushes inside past House. “Or not. Is the stick back up your ass again? I thought we’d removed that a month ago with the sex.”

Chase paces back and forth, but he stops after a moment and looks at House. “You left a message on my machine,” he accuses.

“I did.”

“It was phone sex!”

House furrows his brow in thought. “Yup. Sounds about right.”

“Of course I had to come over here,” Chase mutters, standing perfectly still and looking perfectly angry. House just approaches and runs one hand through the perfect layers of hair, giving it a sharp tug and tipping his head to the side to mirror the way Chase’s head is angled. “House?”

“Shut up.” And a kiss makes it so.

 **Day Seventeen**

 _I’m not here. Leave a message._

“Fair’s fair.” House isn’t home. He’d gone out to pick up a burger and fries and avoid that unseemly act of cooking for yet another night. Chase’s voice drifts into House’s empty apartment like a vengeful ghost. “I had another dream. Not as interesting as yours was, but it was something. You had that tie again, but you didn’t wrap it around my wrists. It was silk, I think. I just remember that when you tied it like a blindfold, I didn’t mind so much.”

As though a reply, the clock clicked forward another minute.

“You sort of stroked your fingers down my cheek. They were calloused.” Chase clears his throat, as though embarrassed by the admissions. “I think I was naked and we were in front of a mirror. You were talking about how mirrors don’t show lies, only truths. It sounded like you. You pressed your lips to my neck and you whispered to me, ‘I know all your truths.”

There’s a pregnant pause.

“That sounded like you too. But you don’t. Know them all, I mean.”

Click.

 **Day Eighteen**

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The rain assaults the window and accompanies the sound of House repetitively dropping his cane to the ground and listening to the sound it makes. Chase’s message had given him something more to think about and some more puzzles had fallen into place. So it’s a secret. House is good at catching people in lies and Chase is a terrible liar.

He turns to find Chase coming inside with an honest-to-God umbrella. This, of course, means no damp doctor fun.

“I got your message,” House informs him, still routinely letting his cane drop down, back up, down, up. “It was…intriguing.”

Chase arches an eyebrow, his cool exterior not shifting once – the San Andreas Fault of faces, Chase is not. “Yeah? You’re not solving this one, House.”

“You doubt me.”

“No,” Chase answers. “It’s simple enough. You’re thinking about it too hard.”

 **Day Nineteen**

They’re necking in House’s office at one in the morning and Chase has reverted to form like the past two and a half weeks haven’t happened at all. It’s not all bad. House has dropped the mystery -- _for now_ \-- and Chase’s oral fixation is back in full force. Of course, House is just still so damn curious, but then, interrupting Chase would mean that the pleasant sucking sensation at the junction of shoulder and neck would have to stop.

A handjob and an hour of kissing later and Chase is leaving with his coat draped over his back and House leering at his ass and back. “Your shirts are a size too small!” he calls out after him.

Chase barely turns, just enough to grin back at him and give him a small salute and a wave.

 **Day Twenty**

On his desk, House finds a mock-prescription sitting there, prescribed by Dr. Chase himself. _Doctor Robert_ , the song goes. House hums the old Beatles version as he sits down in his chair, eyes flicking over the sticker. “Day and night, he’ll be there anytime at all, Doctor Robert,” he sings under his breath, chuckling slightly as he reads the diagnosis and the prescription.

 **Gregory House. Take one as prescribed whenever the pain magnifies. Check with Dr. Chase in the morning.**

“Doctor Robert, you’re a new and better man,” House sings a little louder, leaning back in his chair and smirking up at the ceiling.

 **Day Twenty-One**

“Was this your cute British way of saying you’re addicted to me?” House asks in the locker room, flicking the prescription between two fingers and showing Chase – who stands there in just a towel, dripping from the shower he’d just taken. House had spent the duration of that shower kicking back and watching as they carried on a conversation about baseball, oddly enough.

Chase takes the sticker into his hand, staring at it like he’s never seen it before. “Uh…”

“Oh for…you _did_ make this up, right?” House wants badly to smack Chase over the back of the head.

Chase just stares. “No.”

Wilson is _definitely_ getting an earful tonight.

 **Day Twenty-Two**

They sit in a bar and drink shots of liquid cocaine while they rate the women that wander past. Most of them wink at Chase and he spends a little time flirting with all of them – and with the _male_ bartender, which had surprised House, but maybe Chase just really wants free drinks. “Eight,” Chase says decisively about a brunette.

“Six,” House scoffs. “Now those are fake, grasshopper. You must learn.”

Chase rolls his eyes. “You figure out who printed that prescription?”

“Yeah. You figure out if that prescription was right?” House replies almost immediately, chasing a shot with his pint of Coors. He glances sideways to see if that remark lands anywhere with Chase, but Chase is still staring at Miss-Eight-Brunette-With-The-Silicone-Rack.

Chase just idly runs his thumb around his empty shotglass. “Why are you still doing this with me?” he finally asks.

House has been waiting for that question for two months now.

Of course, he doesn’t answer.

“Maybe I’ll upgrade her to a seven for those low-riding jeans.”

 **Day Twenty-Three**

It is actually possible for Chase to obsess over something, it turns out. House finds him sitting on his stoop that night, curled up under the awning – it’s raining yet again, dreary in New Jersey; what else is new? – and looking about fifteen degrees too cold. “Why?” Chase asks immediately.

“Because every time,” House begins, opening his door slowly, “that I think I’ve got you figured out, you turn around and suddenly, you’ve got eight more layers of issues and repressed fucked-up-ness to you.”

Chase just gives him a glare. “We still have sex because I’m still a puzzle?”

“That’s about it.”

 **Day Twenty-Four**

“And the treating me like crap?” Chase inquires, first thing in the morning as he hands House a cup of coffee from the cafeteria.

House winces as he takes a sip of the coffee to see whether Chase has brought him the good stuff. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, I wanted black. This is two sugars.” He’s ignoring Chase’s question because who demands such a stupid thing at ten-thirty in the morning. “Don’t you have a job to do?”

“On your payroll, remember?” Whoops. Clear sign that Chase is pissed; the accent’s suddenly a lot thicker. “If we’re still sleeping together, how come you’re still treating me like crap?”

“Because there are some things,” House advises wisely, “that you can never change.”

 **Day Twenty-Five**

 _I’m not here. Leave a message._

“So I can’t change things. All right.”

House is there this time, reclined back in his chair and peering at the machine to see where Chase is going with this. It’s nearly midnight and House is still wondering if Chase would accept his answer. “And you can’t change me. So I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.

House glances to his door and wonders if maybe he should bolt-lock it.

 **Day Twenty-Six**

Chase has been knocking at his door for five minutes straight while House focuses on making a sandwich that even Dagwood would be jealous of. He opens the door after seven minutes of knocking. “Well?” House urges. “Don’t just stand there.”

“I’ve been knocking for ten minutes!” Chase protests, clasping something that looks suspiciously familiar in his hands. His cheeks are flushed pink with the cold from outdoors and it lends a rather feminine air to him. House tells him so. “Yeah, well, rate me later. We’re talking.”

“You were out there,” House corrects, “for seven minutes and thirteen seconds.”

“You _timed_ me?”

“I like details.” House sets down his sandwich on the table as he sits on the piano bench. “What’s that?”

Chase hands over the folder with a little bit of a smug smile. “The next time you and Wilson want to pass notes in class,” he begins, sounding all too sure of himself. “You’ll want to make sure you destroy the evidence.” He gives House one last leer before turning to leave.

House is too busy opening the file to find Andie’s autopsy results and that same sticky note that Wilson had posted there. _When running a marathon, one tends to pace himself towards the beginning and sprint towards the end. Oh, and drink plenty of fluid._

Below that in Chase’s writing is a simple message: _The next time you run a marathon with me, just know that I’ll keep up. I’ve always liked a good challenge._

THE END


End file.
